Stewart previously came under fire for his defense of Confederate monuments and refusal to apologize for white supremacists. (Daniel Lin/AP)

President Trump offered his full-throated support to a GOP Senate candidate in Virginia who last year appeared alongside white nationalists and opposed removing Confederate monuments.

Corey Stewart won the state’s three-way GOP primary Tuesday night to face incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat who was the party’s 2016 vice presidential nominee, in the November general election.

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“Congratulations to Corey Stewart for his great victory for Senator from Virginia. Now he runs against a total stiff, Tim Kaine, who is weak on crime and borders, and wants to raise your taxes through the roof,” Trump tweeted as he arrived home from his Singapore meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. “Don’t underestimate Corey, a major chance of winning!”

Stewart, while running for the Republican nomination for governor last summer, made headlines for comments he made after the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va.

He’d appeared alongside Jason Kessler, the white nationalist leader who organized the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville last August, and other alt-right leaders.

Congratulations to Corey Stewart for his great victory for Senator from Virginia. Now he runs against a total stiff, Tim Kaine, who is weak on crime and borders, and wants to raise your taxes through the roof. Don’t underestimate Corey, a major chance of winning!

The hate groups’ protest against the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue turned into violent clashes with counter demonstrators, one of whom was killed when a white nationalist plowed his Dodge Challenger into a crowd.

While Stewart tried to distance himself from Kessler, he lambasted his fellow Republicans for their response to the violence.

“All the weak Republicans, they couldn’t apologize fast enough,” he said to the Washington Post last year. “They played right into the hands of the left wing. Those (Nazi) people have nothing to do with the Republican Party. There was no reason to apologize.”

Stewart lost a tight primary to ex-Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie, and went on to launch his bid against Kaine.

Kaine held an 11-point lead over Stewart in a Roanoke College poll released last week, but it was the thinnest margin the Democrat had over any of his three potential GOP challenges.

Despite getting the President’s backing, Stewart won’t have support of the Senate Republicans’ campaign wing.

"We have a big map, right now we are focused on Florida, North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana,” Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told CNN. “I don’t see Virginia in it.”